Follow me as I serve the Lord for 18 months in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

plot twist, i'm going english!

YEP, I am heading to an English area! The calls came in last night and it was really weird to hear but I am super excited. I will be heading out to the area of Vanderbilt Beach, in Naples! I get to go to the west coast of the mission which is new and exciting. Since there is literally nothing in the middle of our mission, except the Everglades, you are in a different mission. It is going to be weird to be so far from everything over here, but I am really excited. I'm totally not worried about having to speak English. My companion, Sister Rosario, is from the Dominican Republic and is learning English so I will get to keep up my Spanish pretty well. The ward out there is super great and awesome and I cannot wait to get out there. Naples is a bit more slow paced but I am still stoked and ready and willing to do what I need to out there!

That is probably the only exciting news from the week. But on Thursday, we had another "all mission bike day" because some Elders crashed their car and so everyone was on bikes. We had a district meal appointment 10 miles away and we all biked down. It was funny to see us all on bikes and we were laughing the whole day because we ended up going about 25 miles on bikes that day. FUN. We were not laughing however when we rode 2 miles past a gold course and the sidewalk was literally impassable with gnats. We sped through that, jumped off and just screamed while getting them all off of us. Those little nasty things were everywhere. I am in the south so I guess I should have expected it!

This morning during personal study I read a talk from Elder Pearson titled, "Stay by the Tree", from the April 2015 conference I think. It was really interesting to read! Highly recommend it. There was one quote that he said that really stood out to me. He said, "When adversity comes, don't let something you don't fully understand unravel all you do know." It is something that is so true in missionary work and really makes a difference! We can't let stuff get us down because it is all in the Lord's plan and adversity is going to come and is going to be rough at times. But when we are firm in the faith and stand forward, we will be okay and we will be able to withstand those hard times. Then he mentioned a quote from Elder Maxwell who said, "If everything is going perfect for you right now, just wait." It kind of made me laugh a bit since I read it right after transfer calls, but its really true. There will ALWAYS be adversity and there will always be struggles but there is a reason for it all. Life, especially, is not going to be perfect and its not supposed to be!

1: One more from the baptism last week

2: Yummy Colombian food holla

3: It has started raining at 3:00 every day. FUN STUFF.

4: we died after walking 2 miles trying to find a former investigator in a MAZE of an apartment complex.

5: Literally the only nice thing about rain is the momentary temperature drop.